Core Strength – Why Is It Important?

When you think of your core, what comes to mind? Many people think of it as having a 6-pack of abs, but it really goes much further than that says a Jamison Chiropractor . Your “core”, as its commonly called, is composed of muscles in your torso not just in the front, but the back and sides as well…your erector spinae, the bottom of your lats, your obliques, and the transverse abdominus, just to name a few! Think of it in terms of a corset – it wraps all the way around the body, and so do your core muscles. So why are your core muscles so important?

The muscles in and around your torso are essentially stabilizing your entire body. According to the best local chiropractor, keeping those muscles strengthened not only helps to improve posture, but they also help with balance as well. From the playing fields to doing regular household chores, having a strong core will reduce the risk of injury and help maintain flexibility.

Bending, rotating, lifting, and walking/running are all examples of activities that can be made easier by having a strong core, and incorporating exercises into your fitness routine can optimize those strength gains and reduce the chance of injury – especially to your lower back! According to a Warrington chiropractor, specific core exercises are often overlooked when it comes to developing a fitness program, so ensure that you are training your core as well as upper and lower body.

Since everything in the body is connected, think of your core as the chain in the middle – if that chain is weak, it’s going to eventually affect the arms and legs as well. For overall performance improvement, including improved balance, stability, and posture, remember to incorporate core strengthening exercises into your workout routine!

Strength Training Benefits

For most folks, if you mention lifting weights, they probably imagine someone doing massive amounts of bicep curls in the gym; let’s get this this image of what weight lifting might look like out of here! Multiple studies talked about by the best local Jamison chiropractor show just how beneficial resistance training can be, for both men and women. Sure, we can build muscle and strength with lifting those dumbbells…but how else can we benefit?

Putting a load on our muscles, joints, and bones is imperative for our overall health and wellness, especially as we get older; as we age, we lose bone mass, and that can lead to issues like osteoporosis, back pain and postural issues. By adding weight training into our workout programs, we can slow the process, and maintain strength in our bones! We also start to lose our lean muscle mass as we age, and strength training can minimize the losses that are inevitable.

Lifting weights also has another benefit – not only does it help maintain a healthy body weight, but muscle also needs energy, so it uses blood sugar! This is helpful, especially those folks that are at a greater risk for diseases like diabetes, as well as high blood pressure.

If you’re still iffy about weight training, don’t be! You don’t have to lift massive amounts of weight in order to see these benefits, and we are able to see improvements in strength across all ages when incorporated as part of a healthy lifestyle with your favorite local chiropractor. And even better? You can use your own body weight as resistance, so get started on some squats, pushups, and planks, and start building up those muscles!

Healthy Snacking

With busy work schedules, after school activities with the kids, and everything else that life throws at us, how many of us take the time to snack properly? Sure, it’s easy to roll through a drive-thru or grab a quick bag of chips or a soda while out running errands…but is it the healthiest choice that we could make for ourselves? A Jamison chiropractor shows us some ways we can snack a bit smarter while we’re on the go!

First, there’s nothing wrong with snacking. It can help maintain blood sugar levels during the day, keeping you from that late afternoon crash or overeating later in the evening. Keeping some small portions of food in your bag with you during the day is a great way to keep yourself healthy and fit, and can help alleviate your back and neck pains! Next, think of your snack as a little meal – try not to sit in front of your desk doing work or in front of a tv to eat – mindfully think about what you’re munching on, and enjoy it!

You want to keep portion sizes in mind, not only with meals, but snacks as well. Nuts are good example of a treat to have on hand, and are full of protein, healthy fats, and fiber. You can also pair nuts with a carbohydrate like fruit, which will help keep you full and energized!

When it comes to healthy snacking, the Warrington chiropractor says just remember these things: pay attention to your portion sizes (the snack sized Ziploc bags are great!), and pick foods that are nutrient dense and that will give you enough protein and healthy fat to keep you satisfied and power you through your day!

GET YOUR FORTY WINKS

We all spend more than a third of our lives sleeping, but until recently scientists knew surprisingly little about the role that sleep plays in health. In the last few decades sleep research has been a hot topic in medicine, and it has revealed how important a good night’s sleep is to our physical and mental well-being.

There are many studies that show how a lack of sleep can play a role in chronic diseases and health conditions, and now local chiropractors are even seeing a relationship between poor sleep and pain.

A study by Esther Afolalu of the University of Warwick in Coventry, the UK, has found that poor sleepers have higher rates of chronic pain. The study, which tracked more than 60,000 adults in ten countries for four or more years, found that insufficient or poor quality sleep resulted in an increase in back and neck pain, fatigue, and poor health. When patients developed insomnia, they had double the risk of chronic pain disorders. The study’s conclusion was that sleep problems had a negative effect on a patient’s ability to process and handle pain.

Another study, by Dr. Monika Haack of Harvard, found that people who think they can make up for lost sleep by snoozing longer on the weekends are fooling themselves. Haack found that people who tried to catch up on weekends actually had more problems dealing with pain than those who got eight hours every night.

There’s no substitute for a good night’s sleep!

Local Chiropractor Offers Tips For Good Sitting

The way you sit or stand may seem like a simple matter, but it has a lot more influence on your physical and mental health than you may think. Poor posture can cause pain and soreness in your back and neck, as well as headaches, poor circulation, fatigue, and other problems. It can even affect your mental outlook, and can be a factor in low self-esteem and depression.

A chiropractor near you is well-versed in posture issues, since their main focus is on spinal health. Here are a few tips for good sitting posture, from the American Chiropractic Association.

. Keep your feet on the floor.

. Don’t cross your legs. The rule is, your ankles should be in front of your knees.

. Leave a small space between the back of your knees and the
front of your seat.

. Make sure the chair is the proper height — your knees should be at or above the level of your hips.

. If you can adjust the backrest of your chair, make sure it supports your lower back.

. Sitting is not just about your lower body. Proper sitting posture means relaxing your shoulders and keeping your forearms parallel to the ground.

. No matter how good your posture is, your best local chiropractor says it’s a mistake to sit in the same position for too long. You need to change your position or get up periodically to stimulate circulation. Besides, keeping the same posture for too long allows you to fall into bad habits, like slouching.

Pay attention to your posture — it’s important for your health!

YOGA AND MEDITATION ON THE JOB

Ask almost anyone these days how their job is going, and they'll probably tell you they're stressed. Stress levels in every area of life have increased, but especially in the workplace. In many industries and professions, people are working longer hours and dealing with increased pressure to perform well, so it's no wonder that they're feeling stressed. Stress has been shown to be a factor in many types of physical and mental ailments, so dealing with stress in the workplace has become an important issue.

Perhaps that's why a new study has revealed that more and more workers in the U.S. are using stress-reduction techniques like yoga, massage and meditation. The study, which appeared in a journal published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that in the group of more than 85,000 adults who participated, yoga practice increased from 6 percent to 11 percent from 2002 to 2012. During the same period meditation rates increased from 8 percent to almost 10 percent for this group. 

The other significant finding from a Jamison chiropractor was that people were more likely to practice these techniques if they had a job, which makes sense because jobs can create stress.

One of the recommendations of the study is that companies should try to provide more outlets for their employees to learn and practice these stress-reducing techniques. It could be a smart move for a company to offer classes or discounts at gyms, local chiropractic office or yoga centers where their employees could learn yoga, meditation, or other mindfulness techniques like tai chi or qigong.

Stress costs our economy billions of dollars each year in lost productivity, sick time, and other problems, so its good business for companies to make it easy for employees to do a little yoga or meditation!

HOLISTIC SYSTEM SHOWS PROMISE IN TREATING ALLERGIES

Allergies can be maddeningly difficult to identify and treat. They often have the same symptoms as other ailments, and many times allergy sufferers go through a battery of tests, or strategies such as eliminating food items from their diet, to try and find out what it is in their environment that’s causing the problem. Even when the allergy is isolated, it may not respond easily to an allergy treatment from a chiropractor near you.

There’s a new treatment that may offer some hope to allergy sufferers, and it’s called NAET, which is short for Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Techniques. NAET was developed in 1983 by Dr. Devi S. Nambudripad, and it is a non-invasive, drug-free remedy for treating allergies. It borrows from acupuncture, acupressure, chiropractic, and other natural medical disciplines. As an example, one NAET technique is for the patient to hold a container of whatever allergen is bothering them, while the therapist taps acupuncture points along the spinal column. This technique will reset the body’s response to the allergen, according to a local Jamison chiropractor.

NAET has been growing worldwide since Dr. Nambudripad developed it in 1983. There are more than 12,000 health care workers worldwide who have been trained in the system, although it is still relatively unknown in the U.S. It’s a welcome addition to the array of non-invasive, natural techniques that allergy sufferers can use to alleviate their condition and improve their overall health.